


The Other Side

by KittyAug, KittyAugust (KittyAug)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternative realities, Christmas Decorations, Christmas Eve, Dean vs Parallel Destiel, Denial of Feelings, Destiel Christmas Minibang, Destiel Christmas Minibang 2015, F/M, Family Fluff, Fluff, Kidfic, M/M, Parallel Universes, Pie, Rule 63, Rule 63 vs Canon, Semi-resolved, angel - Freeform, arts and crafts, dcminibang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 21:49:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5349722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittyAug/pseuds/KittyAug, https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittyAug/pseuds/KittyAugust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is what happens when you spend too much time around angels, man. People dropping in from the other side of reality to get you to frigging babysit. Dean is not ready to deal with this shi- oops!</p><p>Deanna Winchester ends up on canonverse Dean's doorstep with a couple of kids and a very familiar angel in tow. Dean is not jealous. Nope. Not at all.</p><p><a href="http://destielchristmasminibang.tumblr.com/">Destiel Christmas Minibang</a>: Angel</p><p>Fic by <a href="http://kittyaugust.tumblr.com">Kitty August</a> and Art by <a href="http://alloutofgoodnames.tumblr.com/">Girlwithgoggles</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Other Side

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Girlwithgoggles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Girlwithgoggles/gifts).



> Beta by the amazing WTINP - thanks hun!

Destiel Xmas Prompt: Angel

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the bunker, not a creature was stirring, not even a ghost.

O*o*O*o*O

Sam has just been sent back to the kitchen for more eggnog when the knocking starts. Dean is up on his feet within seconds, gun at the ready. Cas just looks up at him impassively, he hasn’t even started to get out of the sole comfy chair by the radiator.

“Really?” Dean grouses. “You think this is all a trick so one of us can steal the goddamn chair?”

“It seems plausible,” Cas says, the slight smile on the edge of his lips makes Dean’s chest hurt. He ignores it.

“Hmph, well it’s not. Get up and watch my six, man.”

Cas raises an eyebrow at the command. But he gets up and carefully follows Dean up the stairs to the entrance, so Dean’s counting it as a win. People don’t knock on the bunker door. It looks like a damn water reservoir thing. Visitor equals threat, simple. Dean likes simple.

He tugs the door open, ready to level his semi-auto on whoever the hell it is, and stops short.

Because it’s Cas. Well, it’s something that looks like Cas anyway. Because the real Cas is standing a foot behind him blinking in confusion at the people on the doorstep.

The Cas-lookalike has his hand on the shoulder of a really hot chick, who looks a lot like a female hunter. Plaid shirt, jeans, steel toed boots and short cropped dirty blonde hair. She’s got amazing eyes, for someone who hangs out with monsters, and she’s holding a goddamn baby. Great. Just friggin great. Awsome even. Just what they need on Christmas eve.

There’s also a kid. Looks about five or six years old, and he’s got a death grip on fake-Cas’s coat. He also looks enough like Sam did at that age to make Dean pause before he just shoots one of them.

“Who the hell is that?” the hunter chick asks, before Dean can say the same thing about their whole little group. 

“Um, you, I think,” fake Cas says, brow creasing ador- not adorably. Not at all. No Cas or Cas-like entity does anything adorably. What the fuck, Winchester.

And also, hold up. What does he mean by ‘you’ - you who.

“I concur,” says real Cas from behind Dean.

“You do?” Dean glances over his shoulder to Cas, who is just nodding serenely, like this isn’t somehow the freakiest shit that has happened to them yet.

The definitely-a-chick, definitely-not-Dean, woman turns to fake-Cas and seems just as offended by this turn of events as Dean is.

“You said this wouldn’t be as freaky as last time, Cas. I distinctly remember you saying ‘almost the same as our universe, Deanna.” Definitely-not-Dean does do a pretty good Cas impression, he’ll give her that much. Her voice goes all deep and scratchy and she's got the posture right.

“It is,” fake-Cas says, somewhat defensively. He gestures to where real-Cas is still just standing there acting like any of this makes sense.

“No,” not-Dean says, hugging the baby slightly closer. “This is nothing like our universe Cas. That’s a dude. If you haven’t noticed, I am not a frigging dude, Cas!”

“Deanna,” fake-Cas says with mock patience. Turns out Dean can read Cas’s double as well as he can the real Cas. “We don’t have much time, and I am sure you know how many tests they’re going to want to do to prove that we are who we says we are… so-”

“Nope. No. I am not leaving my kids with some freaky hunter with blood stains on him just because you say it’s me. Not gonna happen." She's pretty adamant.

"You have the same blood stain," fake-Cas points out, more reasonably than he probably should. And, oh, yeah she does. It's vamp blood from a few months back, dark and blotched on his shirt collar.  That shit never does come out. That is freaky.

"This is at least as bad as the Wipe-out girl!” the chick says, for lack of a real argument.

Dean laughs, can’t help himself.

“At least you weren’t on a soap opera,” Dean says without thinking, just shuddering at the memory of the creepy Supernatural TV show world.

She looks at Dean again for the first time. There is something really familiar about her eyes.

“Which soap opera?” she asks, like she doesn’t want to admit that she’s intrigued. Dean can tell, he'd wanna know too. He's never gonna admit the Wipe-out girl thing is kind of cool.

“Days of Our Lives,” Dean admits.

“Ick,” the woman says in a genuinely commiserative tone.

“Deanna,” fake-Cas prompts.

“Fine,” she says and thrusts the baby into real-Cas’s arms, bypassing Dean completely. She does it quick, like she wants to do it before she chickens out. She glares at Dean like he might want to try and take the stupid baby. He doesn’t. Obviously. No matter how cute they are at that age or how big its eyes are. So not his problem. “You weirdos are baby sitting while we go save the world. Don’t let the Darkness eat them. You guys have that, right?”

Real-Cas looks startled at last, and holds the baby awkwardly at half-arms length. He nods, re: the Darkness, but mostly can’t stop staring at the blue-eyed baby in awe. It is really cute. If Dean thought any dude and/or baby was cute. Which Dean does not. Obviously.

“Fake-Cas can’t even hold a baby!” Deanna says, half flailing, half pointing at real-Cas (thank you very much), who is apparently fake-Cas to her. Makes a morbid kinda sense. Also, there is something really familiar about her unimpressed gesture, but Dean is pretty sure he doesn’t do that. At least, not as much. If he does do it, then it’s in a way more manly way.

“Here,” Dean says, ignoring Deanna’s glare and taking the baby off Cas. He’s still not holding it right and that isn’t good for them at that age. He shifts the kid’s weight in his arms and supports the head. Deanna looks slightly mollified, but only slightly.

“This was a bad idea, let’s just-” Deanna starts but gets cut off. Both her words and aborted grab for the kid interrupted.

“Dean,” Sam’s voice cuts up the stairs. “What’s going on?”

“Um,” Dean says.

“Our parallel selves seem to be visiting from another dimension,” Cas explains, more articulate but less tactful.

“What?” Sam sounds more confused, not less. Which, fair. Dean’s pretty damn confused too.

It’s only then that Dean notices the slightly frozen look on his counterpart. Sam’s voice. He knows that look. It's the sort of look he normally drowns in whiskey and Metallica.

“Shi-” Dean stops himself looking down at the older kid, definitely old enough to know a bad word when he hears it. His eyes are sharp and knowing and a little too blue.

“Yeah,” Deanna says, reading his meaning the way you only ever really read yourself. She’s actually more like him than the other Sam-less Dean he’s met. More human than he’d have expected if what he suspects is true.

“That’s why we’re here,” she adds, in a simple and blood chilling confirmation.

“You couldn’t find a babysitter so you just hop realities?” Dean wishes he sounded more incredulous than offended, but it’s better than nothing.

“Not quite.” It’s fake-Cas this time, and the way he’s looking at girl Dean is not at all comfortable. Concern and hope and devotion and all sort of shit Dean isn't ready to think about. Dean shifts a bit, unconsciously making room to let the whole damn lot of them into the bunker. Mostly just so he can stop looking at them.

"I don't suppose you lot have any Nephilim warding on the kitchen draws and the gun safe, do you?" Deanna grumbles. "Hell they probably don't even have a gun safe, Cas!"

“Nephi-” Dean stops. He knew. Of course he knew. But he can’t pretend he didn’t anymore. He looks between lady Dean and other Cas. “How?”

Deanna stares at him like he just suggested Jar Jar Binks was a good idea.

“Dude,” she says. “I’m guessing your John Winchester was just as much of a drunk as mine, but he did some things darn right. If the man knew how to give the birds and the bees talk to _me_ , then he sure as heck gave it to you. So, let me slow this down for you. When you get touched by an angel with boy bits, and _you’ve_ got girl bits, babies happen. It was the apocalypse, okay man. Don’t judge.”

“I… you… what?”

“Just look after them, I sort of trust you. And I trust fake-Cas even if he doesn’t know what end the diaper goes on. You’ll manage. I’ve got a kid brother to save and an archangel in need of some serious Zero Dark Thirty. Put up the Christmas tree.” She hands him her duffle bag, it clinks. “Give them the presents if we’re not back in time. It’ll be fine. Bobby won’t even be able to tell the difference, creepy soul magic - don’t ask. And Johnny’s got his head on straight, don’t you kiddo?”

“Yes, mom,” says the little boy, speaking for the first time since the freaky sideshow arrived on the doorstep.

“See, easy!” She doesn’t sound convinced, but she sounds like she knows how to get brutally convincing if she has to. “Look, I’m sure this upsets your kinky gay angel sex party plans, or whatever it is I would do if I looked like you. And, honestly dude, I’m all for that in theory. But this is important.”

“It’s not like that,” Dean tries.

“Yeah right it’s not.” It’s not a lot of words, could be read a few ways, but her tone says it all. Dean feels like someone unwrapped his skin. He lets them in anyway.

* * *

So, it turns out that parallel universe Gabriel stole Deanna’s (still male, the multiverse is unfair) version of Sam.

“She just shows up, waltzes in out of nowhere, then she just freaking hijacks Sam. BAMF! Gone.”

“Wait… she?” Sam asks. Dean's stopped bothering and started drinking. What, it's only eggnog. That doesn't count. 

“Um yeah, you know Gabriel? Trickster goddess, blonde, snarky? Too much cake? Massive boobs.”

“Um…”

“In our universe Gabriel’s current vessel is male,” Cas explains, obviously taking pity on girl Dean. It better just be pity. “He’s also dead.”

Not that Dean would be jealous of sort-of-himself. Or, like… about Cas. Ever. Whatever.

“Oh, yeah, ours was dead too. So we frigging thought.” Deanna looks just about ready to break something. 

“Fu-”

“Dude!” Dean and Deanna speak simultaneously. Both the Castiel’s do that kinda cute kinda frustrating half smile thing, the one that would be pretty much busting a nut laughing in anyone else. Sam is actually stunned into silence, or maybe just trying not to laugh his ass off too. Who know.

“Kids,” Dean hisses over the older kid’s head. Sam rolls his eyes.

* * *

The Cas-alike and lady Dean stay for just long enough to use Sam’s wifi. Deanna is very careful not to look at Sam, and that’s what makes Dean’s bones hurt in sympathy. He knows what she’s feeling. He almost feels it himself.

Dean doesn’t look at either Cas at all. Dean doesn’t even pay much attention to the actual case work. He focuses on the baby, manliness be damned. The kids are damn cute, he’ll give this whole parallel universe shit that much.

“Danneel Harris,” Deanna is saying over her shoulder while she unpacks what appears to be an entire army’s worth of baby supplies onto the library tables. “Gabriel’s current vessel was some kind of B list celebutant in our world, she might be here too. In which case we might be able to find her on the gossip sites. Acting like Gabriel and walking around with, that,” Deanna gestures at Sam’s sasquatch stature with the exact same level of disbelief Dean usually offers to his brother’s freakish height. “And _someone_ notices, trust me.” She finishes with a shrug and gives a half body eye-roll when Sam just gives her that blank bitchy look he normally reserves for Dean’s sense of humor.

Sometimes their lives are so messed up there’s no point even trying for sane.

“Are you sure about this?” not-Cas asks just before they fly off. Dean ignores the way not-Cas and not-Dean touch when the angel speaks. Ignores the fact that fake-Cas still has his wings, and  a whole hell of a lot more than Dean could ever give.

“Two men, an angel, a nephilim and a baby. What could go wrong, right?” Deanna smiles. It's fake, but it's a really good fake.

* * *

What could go wrong? Not as much as you might think, actually.

The ‘decorations’ aren’t what Dean expected. But once he sees them he’s not sure why not. A big paper bag full of crayons, crepe paper, string and popping corns. Just like he used to get for Sammy. When you grow up in the back of a muscle car you don’t get to have stuff like Christmas decorations. Not the sort you keep anyway.

It wasn’t until Dean started going to school, a year or two late but not too late that anyone noticed, that he realised there might be an option other than motel walls and beer cans. Although they used to use the beer cans too. Sam loved it. Thought they had the best decorations ever, always homemade and hand drawn. Dean kind of ended up loving it too. And now he sees the craft crap his other-self has obviously just grabbed on the way out of the world, it all comes back to him.

Paper chains, and poorly drawn reindeer pictures. Something close to pride in dad’s eyes when the whole thing made Sam just light up. It became a tradition. Some years Dean would shoplift some tinsel or a pack of those bon-bon things, but every year he made ugly ass paper decorations with Sam. Every year until the fighting started. The year Sam got old enough to talk back, was the year the paper crap stopped. He’d never realised.

“Dean?”

It’s Cas. Of course it’s Cas.

Dean looks up and shakes off the moment.

“It’s nothing,” Dean says, as gruffly as he can.

It’s actually kind of fun. Dean can tell Sam remembers too, despite getting covered in glitter.

The baby sleeps in a blanket nest on one end of the couch. Dean doesn’t miss the way the older kid, Johnny Winchester, of freaking course, keeps looking at the baby. Dean knows that look. Knows what it feels like. He has a moment of ancillary guilt on his parallel self’s behalf. But it passes. It’s almost good. If Dean just doesn’t think about it too much, it’s kind of heaven. The sort you might actually want instead of the sort Dean knows you really get.

Then Johnny decides to make an angel for the top of the tree. Which would be fine. It really would. Except it’s got a goddamn trenchcoat and blue eyes, doesn’t it. That’s it. It’s too much. Dean gets up and leaves the room. It’s too freaking much. Of course it’s that simple. This freaky parallel universe chick version of him gets this. Of freaking course she does.

Dean doesn’t hear Cas follow him, but he knows when he enters the kitchen anyway. He always knows.

“Dean?”

“Don’t wear it out, Cas.” It’s meant to be a joke, but it falls out broken, twisted. Broken and a little melted, like a toy soldier forever trapped in a heat vent.

“I know this situation makes you uncomfortable,” is what Cas says. Just ignores Dean bleeding his stupid messed up crap all over the conversation.

“It’s not that,” is all Dean can manage. It’s as close to the truth as he knows how to come. And all the while that burning thread of something between them stretches even tighter, but still burns all the brighter for it. Dean wants to punch something, or get really really drunk. But that’s not an option when his not-quite but ‘genetically-they’re-a-perfect-match-Dean’ baby starts crying.

It’s like nails on Dean’s bones. And yes, he does know what that feels like. Thanks for asking.

* * *

Somehow they don’t actually start to worry, until it’s more than two hours after Deanna and fake-Cas should have checked in. Kids are kind of exhausting.

Dean still ends up half dozing on the couch, with a blue-eyed baby drooling on him. And he’d say he doesn’t want to give them back, except that the later it gets, the more real that possibility becomes.

When Cas curls up at the other end of the couch Dean doesn’t push him off. He tells himself it’s the way the angel watches the two sleepy kids with more attention than he’s ever given The Wire. But he kind of knows it’s not. Or it is, but for all the wrong reasons.

* * *

Dean wakes up in his own bed. Alone.

He’s almost convinced himself it was all Sam’s eggnog.

Right up until he gets to the kitchen and finds a paper angel in a paper trench coat sitting in pride of place, next to what looks very much like homemade apple pie.

There’s a note:

> “Thanks. Also, if it’s good enough for Bert and Ernie, it’s good enough for us. Like a wise man once said: ‘get your head out of your ass, and stop being an idjit.’
> 
> PS: Cas made the pie but it’s edible.”

Dean smiles, maybe he should take his own advice. And, when he gets a fork into it, he knows he should definitely teach Cas how to make pie.

When Cas walks in and looks at him curiously, it makes his chest ache with a familiar tension. This time he doesn’t ignore it. It's a start. 

O*o*O*o*O

 


End file.
